[AC] StepManiaX produced by Kyle Ward

What's stopping one from saying the same about ITG? I don't get this argument.

Yeah, from looking at the recent streams, the center button makes you change the regular way you play DDR/Pump into something of a hybrid.

Anyways, I can kinda see what you mean by a "glorified simpack", but at the same time, buying a brand new SMX cab with those state of the art pads seem to be well worth the money compared to getting a DDR/ITG cab. I don't think you're easily able to detect what exactly is wrong with the pads (let alone be able to easily fix them in the software itself) before this came along.

And plus, this game isn't just beneficial for the average joe; apparently, you can get free and paid songs in those updates, and the paid songs are just $2 per song, which is a lot cheaper for the potential arcade versus having to pay a monthly/yearly server fee that costs hundreds of dollars from Konami or whathaveyou. You just pay for the machine, and whatever paid DLC you want.

And, since Konami's patents have expired earlier this month, Kyle doesn't have to worry about getting sued again (and happyf33t mentioned he's really good with his customers).

Don't worry. Anything that isn't made by "the mothership" will always look like a glorified simfile pack to some. Times are a'changin' and some people need to get with the times.

Of course a game by an indie developer is not going to look as good as a game that's been around for 20 years and is by a company that's worth millions if not billions of dollars.

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From a game design standpoint it plays exactly like a simfile pack. This isn't about some hivemind mentality, so fuck off with that.

I have said the same thing about ITG. ITG basically was just "What if DDR's hardest difficulties were harder?" and that was it. The easier charts as a result were absolute garbage, doubles mode is an atrocious afterthought and a mess, the inclusion of other modes were simply there rather than thought out or even expanded upon immediately.

This pulls the same thing. I've seen some of the lower charts and they do not have any sort of progression to the higher ones. That's important. It's also a problem when you consider doubles exists as two charts, one of which isn't even all the panels. There is absolutely no way for people to learn doubles in this game without prior knowledge or playing another game. The doubles charts I've seen are actually not that great, and would have been a chart I skipped out on... except it's the only one in the game. I have zero options if I don't like a specific Full chart for a song.

This is supposed to be making their own game. They could have their own limitations set completely different or even not included things they just weren't interested in. Instead, singles is just like DDR and they have a doubles mode that is inaccessible to new players and exists just because.

I'm not hating on this just to hate on it or because I believe DDR is the greatest. Dual charts would have been a pretty good addition to the game on top of more doubles charts. The songlist opens itself up to a lot of really fun chart designs on the lower end of the difficulty range. The features for mod selection showing a preview of the chart is a welcoming addition that adds a little quality of life.

The execution, however, is off.

I know people may say that I shouldn't care about the easier stuff, but I actively still play a lot of easier charts in DDR and regularly play my own easy charts despite being able to pass 17/18s on DDR and 12s on ITG. I don't want to play just the hardest things in the game.
I'll gladly rethink my opinion if there are actually a lot of easier charts that have changed since the last I saw them. Just right now, it's focusing so much on the hardest charts... like a typical simfile pack.

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Lower difficulty charts should not only help teach you early gameplay mechanics but help act as a bridge from one difficulty to the next, but you can't do that if there's sudden spikes in difficulty that you're not prepared for. If i've never played a rhythm game, if this is my first rhythm game, i'm fucked. I don't mind a lot of hard charts, but there should be a practical way of getting a player ready for them.

This is a simfile pack with simfile pack problems.

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Following up on that I was genuinely hoping to get to play this, I still am to a degree but the chart quality is very very questionable in places. It seems some authors don’t know what to do with a 5th panel and just throw notes around like it’s on shuffle, a handful are ok and seem to use the center panel tastefully and make it feel like an actual thing and not just a gimmick. Some charts however just look like they outright have mistakes in them, I feel suns wild chart had a bit in it I saw on a livestream with just a random double tap in the middle of a stream, compared to all the other relevant parts of the song it genuinely looks like a mistake that wasn’t fixed, which makes me wonder if all the charts were actually tested.

Edit: having just watched it again, I feel suns wild chart honestly is a good example of a chart where the patterns don’t seem consistent at all and kinda all over the place position wise, there’s a good few repeated segments that just seem to be someone rushing through or even recording the chart just to get it done. (Also it’s a Kyle ward chart allegedly so I’m even more surprised considering usually the charts he makes are quite safe and tidy)

The other thing that bothered me was how the doubles charts are one difficulty per song, echoing the previous post if there’s a song you like that’s too hard for you on doubles you’re kinda screwed, on the flip side if there’s a song you like that only has an easy doubles chart, well tough!

Those few critical things aside I like the theme and the ui being straightforward and probably idiot proof, it’ll be easier to tell if it’s a good straightforward design over time if we see people getting confused with it or not. I like the score tracking being done through an app to mean that to dont need the arcade to have constant internet access for it to work. I like the song list in general and the presentation a lot too. I just hope further down the line the charts get some additional work or the writers get used to working with the extra panel , also assuming it’s ever going to be released in the UK because if not (and I wouldn’t be surprised if it didn’t) there’s absolutely no point in a lot of users on here paying attention to it

Is there really a need for the attitude or language?

ITT People who have probably never worked in game design think they know how to design a game.

Our core team is about 3 people, aha. We're trying our damn best, and this has been basically our lives (especially Kyle's) for the past 3 and a half years. I'm constantly going in and doing visual polishes and tweaks, and our other team members are doing just the same. Every change and feature is absolutely obsessed over and given the most care it can be. I know I'm still pushing forward within my own limitations of, say, motion graphics, and a lot of small changes recently are really helping bring the UI to life and just "feel good" to use.


I'd really like to hear more about this, because we absolutely did this. You aren't seeing the high level players that are streaming....stream the lower difficulties. An insane amount of effort and balancing went into the lower difficulties.


Again, can you explain this please? There are significant differences between this and other games, but I guess since it's a rhythm game that uses your feet, it's all the same right?

Let's not talk about the new roll mechanics that add a bit of strategy to them, or the fact that we have proper and understandable implementations of lifts, or how we can use pits to put some new challenges in instead of the old "mines", let alone a properly supported routine mode, a new approach to score tracking, differentiated scoring system, online connectivity, or a plethora of other things ;)

There is a wide range of difficulties for both doubles and singles. The 'Dual' mode absolutely helps in prepping for standard doubles play, and I highly suggest trying it, as it is leaps and bounds easier to pick up than what you are thinking.


100% right there with you! I love playing older-rated "9's" and just having a fun time, rather than "omg streams". That is the feeling I've missed for years, and we've absolutely nailed getting that feeling and movement with charts. Some charts are definitely throwbacks to harder style stuff or challenge mode things, just like how other current games have on their higher difficulties....


Two things - I'd like to know exactly where you are seeing the easier charts, as there have been plenty of revisions since the inital reveal and a lot of new thoughts and processes in terms of how this game was designed.

Secondly... this is the exact opposite of what was done with this game in terms of chart design. The primary focus has first and foremost always been the more fun, casual, and 'fitness oriented' scene.

If you actually get to play the game yourself, I'd absolutely love to hear your feedback then - as anyone can tell you, we're super open to feedback.

Anyways, sorry for that wall of text! If anyone has questions or suggestions, please keep them coming. I'd love to go in-depth with some of our decisions, and I absolutely encourage discussion about features. We're super proud of what we've done, and there's tons more to come!

It's not often we get to see a dev talk here, so I will take this opportunity to ask one question I recently thought of:

Are there plans of implementing a Course/Marathon mode a la ITG in the future? If you are, I'd love to see what your team could make in the 13 years since ITG2's courses, and if you've taken any inspirations from the SRT courses that have been on Youtube over the years!

Anyways, thanks for taking the time for reading (and answering) everyone's concerns!

We've been discussing things internally on how to handle stuff like this. Obviously, modded songs are something that many people enjoy (myself included!), and having a way to handle those gracefully, without feeling like we're just forcing it in the face of users that have zero idea what they're doing, is very important.

So I guess nothing to really formally say on it, but we are aware of the request and are exploring ways to handle it.

Thanks for reading our questions and concerns, I really appreciate you doing that. I do have a question in regards to the graphic design, UI, and art direction. I assume you are the individual that is the lead of this department, as you have stated things about this department above.

This is a small aspect of the game that wont really make much of a difference if its present or not. Many players may not care for it either, since it's not the main focus of the game. And other rhythm games (including itg) in the past have these types of designs but never built upon them.

I want to know if there are going to be any characters or character designs in StepmaniaX. I dont know about other players, but I really like when a game has some kind of mascot or a cast of characters. And this would go for any genre of game, but its especially awesome when it's from a rhythm game. Even more so if it was a dancing game.

To give an example, in its early stages(and even today), Beatmania IIDX has characters that people could relate to. Characters would show up on result screens and background videos. I really liked those designs, and I would find myself playing more of the game just to see more. Ofcourse I like the music, but I also wanted to see cool, cute, or interesting pictures/animations. Some of those characters have bios and information about them. I wish the company would create a story with these characters, but I would be asking too much for a rhythm game.

As far as dancing games go, ddr had a cast of characters that players liked or in some cases disliked. However, I'm not saying have background dancers within songs (I actually didn't like that about ddr), but slides of static pics of characters work just fine. Pump it up has specific characters for songs which were cool. Even itg (itg2) had the girl and the boy on the 1player/2 player selection screen. I thought they were cool, and I wanted more of that.

Main point is that I feel having characters can give StepmaniaX an identity that people can recognize if they saw it. Just like a logo could. I would love to go up to someone and ask, "do you know where this character is from?" And just have a conversation about it. It might be because I'm an artist myself, and maybe I'm the only one that feels this way, but I still think there is some kind of science to it.

If this wasn't a thought in development, I would ask if that can be a possibility in the games future?

Thanks for your time and patience.

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Hi darkshortyx,

Honestly, we've been throwing around the idea for a while. Right now, there aren't any plans, but we'll definitely need to see where things lead. I know I've got myself a few characters, but I don't think people would be toooo interested in those specific ones, haha.

The other issue is we're a team of basically 3 people, and I'm the main graphics person. Unfortunately, I'm significantly more of a designer than a character artist, so sadly it's not something I'm not capable of. That being said, we still are thinking about ways to potentially introduce things like this, and we can obviously explore artists to get their input and talents.

I know that's not exactly the best answer there, heh, but they're not off of the table! This is only our first step, and if things go well, I absolutely see us pushing further with those concepts.

I wouldn't mind seeing some of your work. I wouldn't shoot yourself down, I'm sure someone would like it. I see that it maybe tough to implement anything right now, so I understand. I just hope little things like that show up in the future lol. If anything, I'm willing to help in that department if needed. Just let me know when the time comes.

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Also, there's a new location in Texas that has one of our dedicated coin-op machines.

https://facebook.com/SelectStartArcadeBar/

I got to play it last week at Select Start since it was a mile and a half from where I live. It was quite fun. I was not expecting Captain Jack or Vitas in the song list. It will put a dent in your wallet since it costs $1 for 1 song. It only accepts bills or card (each swipe gives you 5 credits) since the coin slot has a screw in it. There are other minor issues that I hope the place fixes them soon, but other than that, the gameplay is great.

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Darn, 8 hours away from me I'm NEVER gonna get to play this damn game. Thanks, Mississippi.

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Wow that's a good way to not have anyone play on the machine besides trying out the game for the first time.

Texas huh. I wish I could make my way over there to play. I live in Florida, so there are a few things we dont have (since Round 1 doesn't exist here either), but we do have a some dave n busters, as well as other places that have some rhythm games, but not much. I hope to play Stepmaniax sometime in the near future.

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The extra panel just kills it for me, is there an option to toggle it on and off?